The Miracle Morning: Transform Your Life Before 8am [Book Summary]

Are you living your best life? Hal Elrod cites Social Security statistics that only 95% of society never achieves the life they really want. They’re too busy attending to what he calls their “life situation,” so they don’t have time to improve the quality of their life. Focusing on the quality of your life might mean starting your own business, gaining better work-life balance, increasing your income, or improving things like your relationships or health.

Hal Elrod proposes that establishing a “miracle morning” routine is the best way to upgrade the quality of all aspects of your life. That’s what happened to him when he started making time for life-altering improvements.

Whether you are a “morning person” or not, implementing a miracle morning may be exactly what you need to get unstuck or simply get started on the path to achieving whatever vision you have for your best life. It’s not necessarily about getting up at 4 AM each morning or even before 8 AM. It’s about starting your day an hour or more earlier than you currently do.

The idea is if you don’t presently feel like you have time to do the things you need to develop the skills, knowledge, and energy to upgrade your life, you’re more likely to do what it takes first thing in the morning. That’s when you have less distractions and aren’t worn out from the day’s activities. Plus, starting your day off earlier sets you up for greater success and focus all day long.

The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod is about overcoming the commonly cited challenge of not having enough time to focus on the most important things in life. It enables you to plan time into your day to achieve the goals and projects you’ve wanted to do but hadn’t accomplished because you were too busy dealing with your day-to-day life. A Miracle Morning routine enables you to focus on these things before you’re exhausted or overwhelmed by all the other minutiae of the day. Hal provides us with a proven recipe for self-improvement and a path to living our best life.

Entrepreneurs and anyone wishing to break out of their rut, whether you’re a traditional 9-5 worker, live the laptop lifestyle working remotely, or manage remote teams, will be inspired by “The Miracle Morning” by Hal Elrod. It clarifies what needs to happen and how to find time to finally take action on all those someday goals and backburner projects. Eliminate your excuses by reading and acting on Hal’s book.

Hal Elrod survived multiple near-death experiences, inspiring people around the globe with his books, keynote speeches, and podcast episodes. He is also the executive producer of a documentary, also called The Miracle Morning, that shows you how to live to your greatest potential. In fact, Hal’s book, The Miracle Morning, has received more than 23,000 five-star reviews on Amazon and has sold millions of copies.

Hal is on a mission to help people become more aware and intentional about their thoughts, words, and actions, and how they impact the trajectory of their lives. As he says on his site, “I believe that one of the greatest gifts each of us can give, to those we love and those we lead, is to fulfill our potential, because in doing so we can help others to do the same. Thus, my purpose has long been centered around striving to evolve toward my highest potential, in service of humanity.”

According to Hal, “as human beings we were born with the innate desire and drive to continuously grow and improve. I believe it’s within all of us. Yet, most of us wake up each day, and life pretty much stays the same.” His goal is to help everyone become the best version of themselves.

Regardless of your goals, Hal believes that “it’s often more about discovering new ways to experience deeper levels of fulfillment and balance in areas of your life that you may have neglected. This can mean making significant improvements with your health, happiness, relationships, finances, spirituality or any other areas that are at the top of your list.”

He continues, “For those who are in the midst of adversity or enduring times of struggle, “The Miracle Morning” has proven time and time again to be the one thing that can empower anyone to overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges, make major breakthroughs, and turn their circumstances around, often in a very short period of time.”

“The Miracle Morning” provides background on how and why Hal started practicing his own miracle morning routine, why you need to add one to your day, the elements of the miracle morning, and how to customize this routine to your schedule and goals.

The following are a few essential highlights from “The Miracle Morning”:

As children we are often encouraged to dream big, and told that anything we want to achieve is possible. But somehow, along the way, we reduce our expectations and settle for less than what we really want.

Hal asks, “Are you ready to stop settling, so you can start living your best life: the life of your dreams?” He continues, “Even achievers, successful in one area, such as business, tend to settle for mediocrity in another area, such as their health or relationships.”

He reminds us that it’s possible to fulfill our potential by taking “small, simple steps today that will enable you to become the person you need to be to create the levels of success you truly want and deserve.”

According to Hal, “Who you are becoming is the single most important determining factor in your quality of life, now and for the future.”

Hal died for six minutes at the age of 20 when he was hit head on by a drunk driver. Overcoming physical and psychological obstacles, he bounced back to build a hall of fame sales career, launch a six-figure success coaching business, and write his first book, Taking Life Head On.

Then, the 2008 recession hit, significantly impacting his business and income to the point that he was no longer profitable and suddenly unable to pay his bills. He was severely depressed and unsure what to do to overcome this enormous setback. Many of us might have similar experiences, especially following the coronavirus pandemic. Maybe your small business even went under, and now you’re trying to figure out how to start a new business after the pandemic.

One morning, after a long night of agonizing over his situation, Hal chose to follow a friend’s advice to go for a run. Although he wasn’t a runner, he found it lifted his spirits and cleared his head. As he was running, he was listening to personal development audio from Jim Rohn. Something that he had heard Jim say countless times before suddenly clicked:

Your level of success will rarely exceed your level of personal development, because success is something you attract by the person you become.

This inspired Hal to develop a way to continuously develop himself. As he put it, “Our outer world will always be a reflection of our inner world. Until we dedicate time each day to developing ourselves into the person that we need to be to create the life we want, success is always going to be a struggle to attain.” He committed to making personal development a priority each day so none of the usual excuses would get in the way.

After implementing his new morning routine, he saw significant improvements. Hal said, “My stress levels dropped dramatically. I had more energy, clarity, and focus. I felt genuinely happy, motivated, and inspired. Thoughts of depression were a distant memory. You could say I was back to my old self again—although I was experiencing so much growth, so rapidly, that I was quickly surpassing any version of myself that I had ever been in the past.” He was able to set goals, create strategies, and execute a plan to save his business and increase his income. And in less than two months his income was higher than it was prior to the economic crash.

Hal believes you should wake up excited about the day ahead. He points out that most people resist the act of waking up each morning by repeatedly hitting the snooze button on their alarm. This sends “a message to the universe that we’d rather lie there in our beds than consciously and actively live and create the lives we say that we want,” Hal explains. We’ve resigned ourselves to mediocrity and unfulfilled potential instead of doing something about it.

But it doesn’t need to be like this. Hal says that “the tone of our morning has a powerful impact on the tone of the rest of our day,” Hal continues, “when you wake up each day with passion and purpose, you join the small percentage of high achievers who are living their dreams.” Indeed, there must be something to starting your day early and with purpose, since famous early risers include wildly successful people like Oprah Winfrey, Tony Robbins, Deepak Chopra, and Bill Gates.

Waking up earlier may not be easy at first, but Hal provides us with a few pointers to make it a bit easier:

Once you’re awake, it’s time to dive into your Miracle Morning activities. A Miracle Morning consists of six elements designed to address the various types of development that have been found to boost success. Hal calls these The Miracle Morning Life S.A.V.E.R.S. and describes them as “Six practices guaranteed to save you from a life of unfulfilled potential.”

These practices include silence, affirmations, visualizations, exercise, reading, and scribing. Let’s take a closer look at each element:

For most people mornings tend to be either stressful and rushed, or slow and unproductive. Neither of these are optimum ways to start your day. Silence has been shown to reduce stress and increase your self-awareness and clarity. This enables you to remain focused on your goals and priorities every day.

Activities you might consider practicing during your period of Silence include meditation, prayer, reflection, deep breathing, and gratitude. These practices will relax your mind and body, calm your spirit, and allow you to be totally present and open to receiving the benefits of the remaining practices in your Miracle Morning routine.

We all have an internal dialogue that runs through our heads continuously, much of which is negative. Affirmations are intended to improve your self-talk and help you develop the mindset you need as you take your life to the next level.

Hal talks about how to create affirmations aligned with your goals and who you need to become to achieve them. Then as you repeat them daily, they immediately make an impression on your subconscious mind. They transform the way you think and feel so you can overcome your limiting beliefs and behaviors, and replace them with those you need to succeed.

Visualization is the practice of generating positive results in your outer world by imagining specific behaviors and outcomes coming to fruition in our life. This is something top athletes and celebrities like Tiger Woods, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Carey and Oprah have employed to achieve success. Hal provides us with step-by-step instructions to leverage this practice in our Miracle Morning routine.

“When you exercise for even a few minutes every morning it significantly boosts your energy, enhances your health, improves self-confidence and emotional well-being, and enables you to think better and concentrate longer,” Hal explained.

The benefits of exercise are undeniable, so they are an essential element in your Miracle Morning routine. And what form of exercise you do each morning is entirely up to you.

Hal refers to reading as “the fast track to transforming any area of your life.” It’s the quickest and easiest way to acquire the knowledge, insights, and strategies to take your life to the next level of success.

There’s no sense in reinventing the wheel when you can learn from people who have already achieved what you wish for in your life, regardless of your specific goals.

The final ‘S’ in S.A.V.E.R.S. is scribing, a.k.a. writing or journaling. This is the act of getting your thoughts on paper. This process allows you to document your insights, ideas, realizations, and successes as well as future opportunities and improvements. You can also spend this time documenting gratitude.

Whatever you choose to write in your journal while scribing each morning, remember to go back and read what you’ve written. This helps you track your progress and accelerates your growth while gleaning new insights as well.

Hal acknowledges that everyone’s situation and schedule are different, so he offers suggestions of how to adapt the Miracle Morning habit to your routine. For example, if you are totally strapped for time as you get started or on certain days, you might consider implementing “The 6-Minute Miracle Morning” he describes in the book.

Other adaptations include selecting which activities you will include in your morning routine and what time of day works best for you. The main idea is to customize your own Miracle Morning and to make it a habit. Just taking the simple steps outlined in this book can lead you to greater energy levels, flexibility, inspiration, and motivation to take on all the tasks associated with running your own small business, such as:

It’s time to stop making excuses and settling for less in your life. Overcome the obstacles to living your most fulfilling life.

Getting up even 30 minutes earlier each morning will boost your success and advance you toward your goals. Create and implement YOUR Miracle Morning routine today!

You can find out more about the book and read other reviews, or purchase your own copy on Amazon, or listen on Audible.

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